2007
2006 2007 2008 __TOC__ Events * Alan Weisman publishes The World Without Us. * Robert Koch Institute in Berlin notes the number of reported syphilis cases in Germany increased to 3,147 in the first half of 2007. January January 1 * The number of U.S. military personnel killed in the Republican War in Iraq reaches 3000. Military personnel killed for the other members of the almost virtual international coalition supporting the U.S. include: Britain: 126; Italy, 33; Ukraine, 18; Poland, 18; Bulgaria, 13; Spain, 11; and Denmark, six. Is it a big ole mistake yet Bushies? * Romania and Bulgaria "offically" join the European Union, but not the Eurozone. Romania cannot adopt the euro until 2014 and Bulgaria not before 2010. Also, unlike other EU citizens, Romanians and Bulgarians cannot travel freely across EU borders. January 3 * The first Director of National Intelligence John D. Negroponte announces he will resign and take the number two slot at the State Department, Deputy Secretary of State. January 4 * 110th Congress is sworn in with Democratic majorities. Big Oil and Big Pharma are mobilized to stop reform. * Sen. Patrick Leahy introduces the War Profiteering Prevention Act of 2007 See Daily Kos Story * Sloppy journalism or stealth conservative propaganda? ABC News with Charles Gibson broadcasts report about the Patriot Riders that begins by noting they were created to protect militiary funerals from protesters but neglects to mention that they were anti-gay rather than anti-war protests. See media bias. January 5 * Listen to the American People Bush! Democratic Speaker of the U.S. House of Represenatatives Nancy Pelosi and Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid send U.S. Pres. George W. Bush letter opposing his planned troop escalation in Iraq. * Prison riot in Apanteos, El Salvador begins. By January 7, 2007, 20 will be dead. January 6 * Conservative Correctness at CNN: weather report explains "Wacky Weather" without reference to the phrases "Global Warming" or "Climate Change." CNN Anchor Betty Nguyen comments she studied Spanish and therefore cannot read French news reports about UFOs. * U.S. Pres. George W. Bush appoints Lt. Gen. David Petraeus to oversee the surge (an easier to spell conservative euphemism for escalation) in U.S. troops deployed in the Republcian War in Iraq. Adm. Mike McConnell appointed to replace John D. Negroponte as Dorector of National Intelligence. Neo-con Zalmay Khalilzad is rumored to be appointed as U.S. Ambassador to the UN. * Peace Mom Cindy Sheehan, Medea Benjamin of Global Exchange and CODEPINK: Women for Peace, and other peace activists arrive in Havana, Cuba. January 7 * On Meet the Press Maryland Democratic Sen. Joe Biden announces that he is running for the Demcoratic Nomination for President in 2008. January 8 * Russian oil supplies cut to Poland, Germany, and Ukraine. January 9 * U.S. air strike in Somalia targets senior Al Qaeda operative Fazul Abdullah Mohammed. January 10 * George W. Bush delivers Iraq War speech announcing escalation of U.S. troops deployed to 22,000. * British government is rumored to be planning the withdraw 3000 of its 7000 troops in Iraq. * Estonian Parliament passes legislation allowing re-burial of Soviet soldiers from the Second World War as part of the demolition of Soviet military memorials in Estonia. The Soviet Red Army stopped and then defeated the German Wehrmacht in massive land battles that determined the outcome of the Second World War in Europe. Estonian nationalists are using the destruction of the Soviet military memorials to humiliate the ethnic Russian minority living in Estonia. January 11 * U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates urges Americans to support Bush's escaltion of the absurd Republican War in Iraq: "At this pivotal moment the credibility of the United States is on the line in Iraq." In reality the second Bush administration has no more credibility to lose. * British Foreign Minister Margaret Beckett endorses the Bush escalation: "We hope that this joint effort to resolve the security situation, which is undermining efforts to put other things right in Iraq, will indeed succeed," she said. * China destroys its own aging weather satellite in demonstration of a ground based missile kinetic kill weapons system. * Russian oil supplies restored to Poland, Germany, and Ukraine. January 12 * Crying Game: U.S. Pres. George W. Bush sheds a tear while awarding a Medal of Honor to the family of late Marine Cpl. Jason Dunham. * Fourteen members of the Carter Center's Advisory Board resign to protest the title and perhaps the content of former U.S. Pres. Jimmy Carter's new book Palestine: Peace not Apartheid: Alan Abrams, Steve Berman, Michael Coles, Jon Golden, Doug Hertz, Barbara Babbit Kaufman, Liane Levetan, Jeff Levy, Leon Novak, Ambassador William B. Schwartz Jr., William B. Schwartz III, Steve Selig, Cathey Steinberg, and Gail Solomon. January 14 * Governor of Conakry bans all public rallies. * International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement adopts Red Crystal as a non-religious emblem for use in its overseas operations. January 15 * Another bungled state execution in Baghdad: Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, former Iraqi intelligence chief and half-brother of Saddam Hussein, and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, former chief judge of the Revolutionary Court. January 16 * Illinois Senator Barack Obama establishes an presidential campaign exploratory committee. * New U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates discusses a surge (Republican code for "escalation" or "increase") in Afghanistan, the other war that the second Bush administration is not winning. January 17 * Flip-flop? U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales announces that U.S. Pres. George W. Bush would not reauthorize the Terrorist Surveillance Program, a controversial domestic warrantless surveillance program. Does this mean it was never necessary in the first place? * Israeli military chief Dan Halutz resigns. January 18 * Conservative intellectual Dinesh D'Souza appears on the Glenn Beck show to pimp his book accusing American liberals of responsibility for 9/11. * U.S. Department of Defense finally issues its Manual for Military Commissions. * Protest in Conakry led by Rabiatou Sera Diallo, president of the National Confederation of Guinea Workers met with tear gas and arrests. January 19 * The new Democratic majority in the U.S. House of Representatives completes its 100 hours legislative agenda with time to spare. The minority House Republicans whine. * Republican U.S. Secretary of Defense Roberts Gates states that the additional 22,000 troops the second Bush admministration wants to send to Iraq will be there "probably going into the summer" and into "late summer." * Armenian-Turkish reporter Hrant Dink is assassinated in Istanbul. January 20 * New York Democratic Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton says, "I'm in and I'm in to win." Becomes the instant Democratic Party frontrunner. Kansas Republican Senator Sam Brownback announces on the same day. * Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan appears on television to denounce the assassination of Hrant Dink: "The bullets aimed at Hrant Dink were shot into all of us." * Somali warlord Mohamed Dheere surrenders to the Somali Army. Ethiopian Army convoy is ambushed in Mogadishu. * Democratic California Assemblywoman Sally Lieber announces she will introduce legislation banning spanking. * Blackhawk down: U.S. helicopter shot down northeast of Baghdad, kiling 12 U.S. soldiers. January 20-21 * A narcissistic CNN News organization treats the charity auction of a hummer that its journalists used in Iraq as a major news event. January 21 * Turkish teenager Ogun Samast is arrested in Samsun for the assassination of Armenian-Turkish reporter Hrant Dink. January 22 * Australian flag carrier Quantas Airline kicks passenger Allen Jasson off a flight from Melbourne to London for wearing an anti-George W. Bush tee-shirt. Australian Prime Minister is a neo-con junior partner in George W. Bush's failed foreign policy in Iraq. * Thousands of Guinean demonstrators shout "down with dictatorship" in Conakry, police shoot and kill 7. January 23 * U.S. Pres. George W. Bush delivers effectively irrelevant State of the Union address. Admits what everyone else on the pleanet except James Inhofe already knows: that global warming is real. * Republican Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia justify the 2000 party line vote on the high court giving George W. BVush the presidency as a fait accompli. The Gannett Co.'s Journal-News reports that he tells an audience, "It's water over the deck - get over it." Expressions of such arrogance demonstrates a lack of judicial temperment, something necessary for the position Scalia occupies. * Israeli President Moishe Katsav does not resign but instead asks for a leave of absence in response to charges of rape, obstruction of justice and fraud. * Neo-cons never fall on their own swords. In his perjury trial Lewis "Scooter" Libby's defense is that he is the designated fall guy for the Bush White House. Libby never complained about his place in the second Bush administration before his resignation and indictment. * Hezbollah paralyzes Beirut with an army of demonstrators. January 24 * In an interview with Wolf Blitzer, Vice President Richard "Dick" Cheney predicts that Hillary Clinton will not be elected President. : Blitzer - "Do you think she will be President then?" : Cheney - "I don't." January 26 * U.S. Pres. George W. Bush issues the neo-con equivalent of the Commissar Order permitting the summary execution of captured Iranian intelligence agents in Iraq. January 28 * Guinean union leader Ibrahima Fofana announces on state television that the national strike directed against the Lansana Conte dictatorship had been "suspended." * Christian Right, former Republican Arkansas Governor, Mike Huckabee announces that he is running for the Republican nomination for president in 2008. * Iraqi (Shi'a) Army defeated in engagement with Iraqi (Sunni) insurgents in battle near Najaf. 1 U.S. helicopter is shot down. Iraqi Brig. Gen. Fadhil Barwari claimed that 300 insurgents were killed, including 30 Afghanis and Saudis, and that 20 were captured. How does the Iraqi insurgents Army know how many were killed if it retreated from the battle under fire? The Iraqis also claim that the insurgents include members of a Mahdist sect called Soldier of Heaven. * Speaking in Davenport, Iowa, Hillary Clinton says she doesn't want to inherit the Iraq War as President, George W. Bush should "extricate our country" from Iraq before he leaving office and it would be "the height of irresponsibility" to pass the war along to the next president. January 29 * Profits before people is conservative S.O.P. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) turns down proposal by Bridge the Gap to cage nuclear power plants to deflect attacks like those of September 11, 2001. * Former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer rolls over on Scooter Libby, telling jury that Libby told him anti-war critic Ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife was CIA agent Valerie Plame. * Three die in Palestinian suicide bombing in a bakery in the Israeli Red Sea resort town of Eilat. * Moscow Mayor and homophobe Yury Luzhkov engages in hate mongering: "Last year, Moscow came under unprecedented pressure to sanction the gay parade, which can be described in no other way than as Satanic...We did not let the parade take place then, and we are not going to allow it in the future." * On Fox News, The O'Reilly Factor Bill O'Reilly complains that public objections in Seattle that scantily clad women are serving coffee in a coffeeshop is ridiculous. The O'Reilly Factor 8:55 PM EST (What could be wrong with that? Aren't interns supposed to serve coffee while scantilly clad?) January 30 * Windows Vista is released. January 31 * Announcement that Al Franken will run for the U.S. Senate from Minnesota in 2008. * Columnist Molly Ivins dies at age 62. * West Midlands Police arrest 9 home-grown Islamists in Birmingham in kidnapping/internet behading plot targettign British Muslim soldier. * Former Rhode Island state senator John Celona sentenced to 2.5 years in prison for accepting bribes from CVS and Blue Shield of Rhode Island. * Former Israeli Justice Minister (56 year old) Haim Ramon is convicted of forcibly kissing a 21 year old female soldier on the first day of 2006 Israeli-Lebanese War. February February * U.S. President George W. Bush's "Positive Rating" falls to 32%. * Sergei Ivanov appointed Russian First Deputy Prime Minister, co-equal with Dmitry Medvedev as second in line to the Russian Presidency. February 1 * "Fair and Balanced" Fox News broadcasts a segment with the title "Will Hillary Clinton be the Worst President Ever?" The Big Story With John Gibson 5:31 PM EST. * James Ujaama, formerly known as James Earnest Thompson, was sentenced to two years in U.S. Federal prison for violating parole by travelling to Belize. * 75,000 march in Mexico City to protest food price increases. * China announces that it is ready to negotiate a treaty to prevent an arms race in space. February 2 * International Conference on Climate Change in Paris issues 21 page summary report that global warming is very likely caused by human activity. In apparent reversal of its long standing opposition to admitting the truth about global warming, the White House allowed U.S. government scientist Susan Solomon to comment that, "there can be no question that the increase in greenhouse gases are dominated by human activities." * The Guardian reports that the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) offered scientists payments of up to $10,000 for articles emphasising the shortcomings of the Paris Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). * Declassified version of 90 page National Intelligence Estimate warns that the situation in Iraq will probably deteriorate unless changes are made to save the situation. The Peace Movement offered that assessment before the 2003 invasion. February 3 * Is British Prime Minister Tony Blair striking a George W. Bush pose? He urges fellow Labour Party members to "weather the storm" of the current party politcal crisis. February 4 * Indianapolis Colts defeat Chicago Bears 29 to 17 in Super Bowl XLI in Miami. February 5 * Conservative populist CNN host Glenn Beck reveals his ignorance of the geography of England when he rails about London Mayor Ken Livingstone's comments that London is a multicultural success story and then uses the recent arrests of Islamists plotters in Birmingham as evidence to the contrary. From his comments, Beck may have believed that Birmingham is a suburb of London. In fact London is in the Southeast of England and Birmingham is in the West Midlands. * 7th Annual Cannibis Convention at the University of Victoria’s David Lam Auditorium. * U.S. Pres. George W. Bush announces $2.9 trillion Federal government budget with his trademark combination of bad grammar and cheap posturing. He lectures Congress on the vils earmarks, a problem he recognizes only after his party loses control of both chambers. * Beantown government officials hysteria: Boston extracts $2 million in damages from Turner Broadcasting for costs incurred because Boston officials overracted to a guerrilla advertisement for Adult Swim's Aqua Teen Hunger Force. * Japanese Sumiyoshi-kai mob boss Ryoichi Sugiura is shot to death in opening gang war between the Sumiyoshi-kai and Yamaguchi-gumi yakuza families. February 6 * Party trumps integrity. Republicans U.S. Senators, including the once courageous Sen. Chuck Hagel, unite to block debate on the Republican War in Iraq. Democratic U.S. House leadership pledges they conduct the vote that their colleagues in the Senate could not. * Former Democratic U.S. Senator Joseph Lieberman proposes a War on Terrorism tax: "I think we have to start thinking about a war on terrorism tax...I mean people keep saying we're not asking a sacrifice of anybody but our military in this war and some civilians who are working on it." February 7 * Pat Robertson reportedly threatens Texas bodybuilder Rhilip Busch: "I am going to kill you and your family." February 8 February 9 * News of Anna Nicole Smith's death swamps FOX News effort to gin up a scandal from Nancy Pelosi's request for Air Force transport. * "We're not in jail for this either, dude." Friendly fire U.S. airstrike kills 8 Kurdish security forces near Mosul. February 10 * Army Gen. David Petraeus takes control of the U.S. military quagmire in Iraq in a ceremony in Baghdad. He then utters heroic sounding but soon to be forgotten words: "We can and we must prevail. This mission is doable." * Conservative Party Leader David Cameron admits that he smoked cannabis while at Eton! Was he also a toker at Oxford? Report in The Independent February 11 * Portugal Abortion Law Referendum: voters will decide whether to legalize abortion for all women until the tenth week of pregnancy. * The Real America repudiates the conservative Republican boycott. Dixis Chicks clean up at the 49th Annual Grammy Awards. February 12 * Happy Darwin Day! February 13 * Unhappy with the diminutive size of his religious home-state (Utah) and the politics of the citizens where he was governor (Massachusetts), Mitt Romney announces he is running for the Republican presidential nomination at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan. Perhaps he knows he won't get the tiny Republican Jewish vote anyway. The Detroit Free Press-Local 4 Michigan Poll conducted in January found that only 8% of likely Michigan Republican primary voters favored Romney. News Report * Announcement of a tentative deal in the six party talks in Beijing to end North Korea's bid to become a nuclear weapons state. The U.S., Russia, China, Britain, France, Israel, India and Pakistan are all nuclear weapons states. February 14 * Terrorist car-bombing in southeastern Iran by the Sunni Islamist "Jundallah" or "Allah's Brigade" targets a bus transporting members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards; 18 dies. February 15 * Evacuations of foreigners continue in Guinea as the country descends into anarchy. February 16 February 17 * European Parliament President Hans-Gert Poettering orders investigation into accusation that the EU funded a 30 page anti-Semitic booklet written by wingnut 71 year-old Polish MEP and botanist Maciej Giertych. In the booklet Giertych claims that Jews prefer to settle "among the rich," "create their own ghettos," and seek "biological separation" which leads to differences in facial features. The "Polish League of Families" MEP's son is the Polish Education Minister, Roman Giertych. February 18 * Lunar New Year * Local elections in Albania. February 19 * OSCE and the Council of Europe observers issue joint statement stating February 18 local elections in Albania fell short of international standards; many people disenfranchised. Southeast European Times February 20 * More shame; 24 year old U.S. soldier Paul E. Cortez enters guilty plea to rape in the gang rape and murder of 14 year Iraqi Abeer Qassim al-Janabi in Mahmoudiya. February 21 * The second Bush adminitration's Coalition of the Willing becomes even more threadbare as Britain and Denamark announce timetables for the withdrawal fo their troops. The UK will pull out 2000 plus troops, Denmark will withdraw all of its 430 troops, while mighty Lithuania is considering withdrawing its 50 soldiers. Speaking in Berlin, U.S. Secretary of State Rice offered a patheticaly transparent denial that the coalition was crumbling: "The coalition remains intact and in fact the British still have thousands of soldiers deployed in Iraq, in the south." * Dick Cheney likes his audiences extra safe. Speaking on hangar deck of the USS Kitty Hawk docked in Tokyo, Cheney vowed, "We want to complete the mission, and we want to get it done right, and we want to return with honor." News Report (Was that the "imperial we" that we hear?) * Dreamworks founder and Big Dem contributor David Geffen slams Hillary Clinton in interview with NYT columnist Maureen Dowd. Geffen describes Clinton as the Democratic candidate "easiest to beat" and criticized her unfusal to apologize for her 2002 vote on the Iraq War: "It's not a very big thing to say 'I made a mistake' on the war, and typical of Hillary Clinton that she can't." February 22 * Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi offers resignation after losing a parliamentary vote on foreign policy involving Italian troop deployed in Afghanistan and expanding the U.S. military base in Vicenza. * UFO report in Somerset County, Maine. * More pathological sexual repression from the Islamic Republic of Iran. Tehran authorities plan to make Caspian sea Arezou (Wish) Island female only for female vactioners. * Declassified documents reveal that the British Ministry of Defence had hired psychics to find Osama bin Laden. February 23 * Speaking to the the Australian-American Leadership Dialogue U.S. Vice President Richard "Dick" Cheney warned about Chinese miltiary intentions. Ironically, Cheney's own government has armed forces fighting in two wars and threatens to start a third against Iran. * U.S. ally Pakistan tests a nuclear capable Shaheen II missile or Hatf VI missile. February 27 * U.S. Veep Richard Bruce (Dick) Cheney hears the distant sound of war during a visit to Baghram Airbase as a suicide bomber kills 23 and wounds more. Pity that Cheney and the other neocons couldn't wait to finish winning the war in Afghanistan before launching their disastrous war in Iraq. * U.S. Director of National Intelligence J. Michael McConnell states that the War in Iraq is at "a precarious juncture" with security and political trends moving "in a negative direction." Translated from national security bureaucratese that means "we're losing." Well done Bushies! * Incumbent Democratic Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley wins re-election with 72% of the vote. * Liberal Party defeats Conservative Party attempt to extend two controversial anti-terrorist measures (allowing preventive arrests and investigative hearings) by a vote of 159 to 124 in the Canadian House of Commons. February 28 * International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutors indict Sudanese Minister for Humanitarian Affairs Ahmed Haroun and a Janjaweed commander Ali Kosheib for war crimes in the Darfur conflict. * Liberal historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. dies in New York at age 89. * Unofficial annoucnment by John McCain that he is running for President on Late Night With Dave Letterman. March March 1-March 9 * "Ground Zero Sixty-Nine" rioting in Copenhagen over control of squatters settlement at Jagtvej 69 that police are helping to exproporaite for a Christian group: 695 are arested. March 2 * Pakistani officials announce they have arrested Mullah Obaidullah Akhund in a raid earlier in the week. * University of Nebraska file suit against the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to stop its "unlawfully withholding and unreasonably delaying action" on its application for Bolivian academic Waskar Ali to teach as an assistant professor in the departments of history and ethnic studies. March 4 * Parliamentary Election in Estonia: 101 seats in the Riigikogu. March 5 * Nine U.S. soldiers in Iraq killed with IEDs. * Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington filed an ethics complaint against Republcian U.S. Senator Pete Domenici. Dismissed U.S. Attorney David Iglesias had earlier revealed that Pete Domenici and Republican U.S. Rep. Heather Wilson, both New Mexico Republicans, telephoned him before the Nov. 7, 2006 Midterm General Election seeking information on the pace of corruption investigations involving Democratic officeholders. * Former first officer of the Aum Shinri Kyo (Supreme Truth) cult Fumihiro Jopu announces he will establish a new religious group. March 6 * U.S. Vice Pres. Dick Cheney is diagnosed with a blood clot (deep venous thrombosis) in his left leg. * Two suicide bombers kill 90 in Iraq. March 7 * Northern Ireland Assembly elected: 108 seats. * Isreali Defense Force raids Palestinian Authority's Military Intelligence headquarters in Ramallah, arresting 18. March 8 * Students, environmentalists and leftists protest visit to Brazil of U.S. Pres. George W. Bush. * Texas Ranger Brian Burzynski tells Texas state legislative committee about his frustration with inaction by the Texas Youth Commission Board over the sex scandal at the West Texas State School in Pyote: "I can only imagine what the students think about the Ranger who was unable to bring them justice." March 9 * FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III admits "deficiencies" in his agency's reporting of the issuance of National Security Letters, a finding of the Inspector General. The report accuses the FBI of failing to retain evidence supporting the legality collecting more than 142,000 telephone, credit, and e-mail records, failing to ensure data received matched its needs or requests, and failing to monitor abuses and accurately tally statistics for Congress. Snooping around in the business records of customers and the library records of patrons is apparently still absolutely crucial in counter-terrorism operations. Also much easier and safer for agents than infiltrating terrorist cells. March 11 * In an bizarre wingnut rant at the CATO Institute Czech President Vaclav Klaus asserts that enviornmentalism is a religion and should be grouped with feminism and communism as a social science. * U.S. President George W. Bush arrives in Bogota, Columbia to discuss cocaine and insurgency. Five bombs in Cali and nearby Buenaventura before his arrival wound 3. While on his 5 nation tour of Latin America Bush announces another troop escalation for the Republican War in Iraq. * Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas meet. * Zimbabwean opposition leader and Movement for Democratic Change President Morgan Tsvangirai arrested. March 16 * Valerie Plame testifies before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. March 18 * Parliamentary Election in Finland: 200 seats. March 19 * Oral argument in Morse v. Frederick. Docket number is 06-278. * Hillary Clinton strategist Mark Penn debates Barak Obama adviser David Axelrod over Obama's voting record on the Republican War in Iraq. March 20 * Louisiana Gov. Gov. Kathleen Blanco annoucnes she wil seek a second term. March 21 * Help for both R. Giuliani and H. Clinton--New York state legislature overwhelmingly approved a measure moving the state's presidential primary to February 5. * Gaillist French Pres. Jacques Chirac surrises no one by endorsing the presidential bid of Gaullist Nicholas Sarkozy. * General Strike in Isreal. March 22 * John and Elizabeth Edwards announce that Elizabeth has incurable but treatable cancer, but vowed to fight on in the 2008 presidential campaign. "You can go cower in the corner and hide or you can be tough and go out there and stand up for what you believe in," said John Edwards. March 23 * Democratic majority in the U.S. House of Representatives passes by 218 to 212 an Iraq War spending measure that includes a timetable for withdraw. Fourteen Democrats, including Dennis Kucinich voted "no" on the measure and one Democrat, Pete Stark, voted "present." * Iranian naval forces arrest 15 British Royal Navy sailors and marines on boats near the mouth of the Shatt al-Arab waterway. * Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry expels Marine Corps special operations company from Afghanistan for their incompetent response to a March 4 ambush. * Assistant Professor of Central American Studies Alicia Estrada is ejected from a screening of Mel Gibson's Apocalypto at California State University, Northridge after questioning Gibson in the post-viewing discussion. "In no way was my question aggressive in the way that he responded to it. These are questions that my peers, my colleagues, ask me every time I make a presentation. These are questions I pose to my students in the classroom." Source: Sandy Cohen. "Gibson at Center of Campus Uproar After Prof Challenges Movie." San Jose Mercury News. March 23, 2007. March 24 March 25 * Presidential Election in Mauritania. March 26, 2007 * Referendum conducted on Constitutional Reforms "legitimating" Egyptian regime's authoritarianism. Major political and civil groups boycotted the vote. The Egpytian government claims 27.1% voter turnout with 75.9% of these voting to approve. However the independent Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR) estimated only 5% voter turnout. March 27 * Senate Committee members question FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III about the abuse of National Security Letters. Why hasn't Mueller resigned yet? * U.S. White House announces that spokesperson Tony Snow's cancer has reappeared. * German Red Army Faction leader Brigitte Mohnhaupt is released on parole after 24 years in jail. * Smithsonian Institution Secretary Lawrence M. Small resigns because of revelations of irregular housing and travel expenditures. * Massive bombing of a Shi'a neighborhood in Tal Afar, Iraq kills 152, wounds 347 and destroys more than 100 homes. March 28 * U.S. Senate passes legislation 50-48 funding the War in Iraq but including a timetable for withdrawal. A posturing U.S. Pres. George W. Bush compalins about pork-barreling in the legislation and threatens to veto the legislation. * Crude oil for May delivery rises to $64.56 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. March 29 * Multiple suicide bombings in markets in predominantly Shi'a neighborhoods kill at least 104. U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker is sworn in Baghdad. * Saudi King Abdullah criticises the U.S. Occupation of Iraq: "blood is spilled between brothers under an illegitimate foreign occupation and despicable sectarianism that threatens civil war." March 30 * Mombusho has decided to revise more of Japanese history. Apparently the Imperial Japanese Army never forced Okinawan civilians to commit suicide in an effort to convince the U.S. of the fanaticism of the Japanese in the closing days of the Second World War. * Report of a Pew Study published in Science reveals massive decline in 11 Atlantic predatory shark species. March 31 April * April: China will launch its first lunar orbiter—the Chang’e-I—on a Dongfanghong III rocket. April 2 * U.S. Supreme Court rules that the Clean Air Act gives the EPA authority to regulate CO2 as an air pollutant in Massachusetts v. EPA. * Hostage Iranian diplomat Jalal Sharafi freed by his kidnappers in Baghdad. April 3 * Employee at Malden Massachusetts's Town Line Inn discovers starving accesory chihuahua thrown away in a travel bag with the trash in a dumpster. Human monster on the loose. * Two people wounded in shooting at the CNN Center, Atlanta. * French train sets record by traveling 357.2 mph. April 6 * Scientists do battle with government officials in Brussels over the wording of the latest report U.N. panel on climate change. Neil Adger of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research explains: ""It looks like very blatant vested interests are trying to stop particular messages getting out. We give our best to provide the best scientific assessment, but when the wording of that is then changed...we get very upset. It's three years' work." April 8 * Blonde Fox News anchor Page Hopkins or another member of the Aryan sisterhood who looks rather like her interviews Col. David Hunt so that he can promote his new book. She joins him to endorsing the political murder of Muqtada al-Sadr before turning to wish everyone a Happy Easter! Neither appears to understand to contradiction between those two thoughts. * The second Bush administration continues to decompose as 2008 Republican presidential candidate and disgraced former Speaker of the U.S. House Newt Gingrich attacks U.S. Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzalez for a mishandled, artificial, self-created mess. So Newt would have conducted a much more effective purge? April 9 * Massive protests by supporters of Moqtada al-Sadr waving Iraqi flags in Najaf, Iraq. * East Timor Presidential Election April 10 * Campaign Obama scores direct hit on campaign McCain: "The idea that the situation in Iraq is improving because it takes a security detail of 100 soldiers, three Black Hawk helicopters and a couple of Apache gunships to walk through a market in the middle of Baghdad is simply not credible and not reflective of the facts on the ground." * Kurt Vonnegut dies at age 84. April 11 * Secretary of Defense Robert Gates extends Iraq tours of active duty U.S. Army units from 12 to 15 months. * In Baghdad U.S. military spokesgeneral Maj. Gen. William Caldwell claism that Iran is arming Sunni insurgents: "There are groups that are receiving training in Iran with the most modern weapons and munitions that are available and then being smuggled into Iraq and being utilised by these groups against the Iraqi security force and coalition forces." * CBS Poll finds that a plurality of American respondents (39%) believe that 2008 Republican War candidate John McCain 39 is painting too rosy a view of the situation in Iraq. * Two suicide bombings in Algeria kill 33 and wound 220. * U.S. Senate votes to lift the Republican second Bush administration's stem cell research ban 63 to 34. April 12 * On CNN's Robin & Company CNN Anchor Robin Meade makes fun of an air traffic controller who had to leave his post for a bathroom break. Her contempt for less well paid professionals with skills on which lives actually depend signals journalistic arrogance. * Suicide bomber kills 1 and wounds 12 in the cafeteria of the Iraqi Parliament building in Baghdad's Green Zone. * New Jersey Governor Jon S. Corzine is seriosuly injured in a car crash. April 13 * NBC News (which owns MSNBC) offers up a sacrifical goat to anti-racist outrage by firing shock jock Don Imus for having performed his job as a shock jock. Big Media then returns to the profitably degrading American culture. April 14 * U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson praises World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz as a "very dedicated public servant." Very dedicated to getting his mistress a $60,000 raise in her tax free salary. Meanwhile Wolfowitz disapproves of corruption in the Third World. * Russian police break-up pro-democracy demonstration near Pushkin Square in Moscow and arrest chess phenemomenon Garry Kasparov. * Two suicide bombings outside U.S. consulate and an American cultural center in Casablanca. * Khalsa Day parade in Washington DC April 15 * Second pro-democracy demonstration in Moscow. April 16 * School shooting at Virginia Tech takes the lives of 32. Easy access to guns claims more lives in America. * Pope Benedict XVI celebrates his 80th Birthday. April 17 * Republicans and conservative Democrats quietly close ranks to protect gun "rights" from the "threat" of gun control. April 18 * Another 230 die in multiple bombings in the Iraqi civil war as the second Bush administration's latest strategic plan fails. In another visit to Baghdad, U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates says that it is only to be expected: "We have anticipated from the very beginning...that the insurgency and others would increase the violence to make the people of Iraq believe the plan is a failure." * Conservatives succeed in reducing individual American liberty once again. The new Republican supermajority on the U.S. Supreme Court strips part of a woman's right to choose and affirms the power of Congress to strip privacy rights to achieve moral purposes. * Adjunct financial accounting professor Nicholas Winset leads discussion the Virginia Tech massacre in a manner that administrators at Emmanuel College in Boston (a so-called "liberal arts" institution) later dispprove as insensitive. (Those who cannot teach second guess.) They decide to fire him. April 19 * The worst public performance by a neo-con ever! U.S. Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzalez uses 70 plus variations of the phrase "I don't recall or remember" in his testimony before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. Can this really be the chief law enforcement official in the United States of America? * U.S. Army issues Army Regulation 530-1, Operations Security (OPSEC), restricting blogging by active sevice personnel. * FBI agents search the Oakton, VA home of U.S. Rep. John Doolittle, as they probe his ties to Jack Abramoff. For some reason this does not appear on the JohnInTheNews page of his Congressional Home Page! Most major News Media sources forget to report that Doolittle is a Republican. Oops! again. April 21 * University of Massachusetts Cannabis Reform Coalition (CRC) holds the 16th Annual Extravaganja on Amherst Common. CRC President John Werner told the assembled throng, "We made the laws, and we can change them." * Nigeria holds Presidential and parliamentary elections that everyone but the "winning" government candidates think were flawed beyond redemption. * Absurd presidential advisor Karl Rove becomes embroiled in heated exchange with Sheryl Crow and Laurie David at black-tie dinner. April 22 * First Round of the 2007 French Presidential Election. Nicholas Sarkozy and Segolene Royal turn back Francois Bayrou for the two places in the May 6 Second Round. April 23 * Boris Yeltsin dies. The alcoholic Yeltsin was the first President of the Russian Federation (1991-1999) during whose tenure the Soviet Union evaporated as a superpower, ordinary Russians were impoverished, and much of the state assets of the country grab-it-ized by a handful of now enormously wealthy oligarchs. * David Halberstam dies in car crash. * U.S. Pres. George W. Bush asserts in very brief White House press conference that he has confidence in Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzalez. April 24 * Suicide car bomb kills 9 U.S. soldiers and wounds 20 others in Diyala Province. * Republican Vice President Richard B. "dick" Cheney accuses Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harru M. Reid of "defeatism." For a neo-con speaking the unvarnished truth is anathema and thus speaking the truth that the Republican second Bush administration has lost its optional war in Iraq is enough to draw the pallid neo-con out of his bunker to attack. * Puerto Rican activist Alberto de Jesus, a.k.a. Tito Kayak, was arrested by Israeli authorities for hanging a Palestinian Authority flag on a tower in the West Bank town of Bil'in. * U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates visits Poland to negotiate on a site to deploy part of a U.S. ABM system aimed at the Russian Federation. * Mexico City assembly votes 46 to 19 to legalize abortion. * Swiss, French and Portuguese scientists at the European Space Observatory in Chile find an Earth-like extrasolar planet orbiting the red dwarf Gliese 581 some 20.5 light years from Sol. April 25 * U.S. House of Representatives passes Iraq war funding bill with a loose timeline on a 218 to 208 (largely party line) vote. * Suicide bombing of a police station in northeast Baghdad kills 9 and wounds 16. April 26 * U.S. Senate passes Iraq war funding bill with a loose timeline on a 51 to 46 vote. * Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visits Washington, DC. * Snoop Dogg is denied an entry visa by Australia after "failing a character test." As a non-citizen Snoop Dog is apparently held to a higher standard than is Australian Prime Minister John Howard, who is regularly allowed back into the country. * U.S. military announces that Lt. Col. William Steele, commander of the 451st Military Police Detachment, was in custody on charges of "aiding the enemy" and having improper relationships, including one with one with a detainee's daughter. * First 2008, and earliest ever, major debate among candidates for the Democratic Party Presidential Nomination at South Carolina State University. Those participating inlcude South Carolina Senator John Edwards, Ohio Representative Dennis Kucinich, freshman Illinois Senator Barak Obama, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, Connecticut Senator Christopher Dodd, Delaware Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware, former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel, and New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. April 27 * Senior White House counselor Dan Bartlett dismisses the assertion in the new books by former DCIA George Tenet that the second Bush administration rushed to war with Iraq: "The president did wrestle with those very serious questions." (Try to imagine Bush intellectually wrestling with any serious public policy issue.) * Mstislav Rostropovich dies in Moscow at age 80. April 30 * Massive demonstration in Istanbul by Turkish secularists. May May * This month will be the third deadliest for the U.S. military in the Republican War in Iraq with 114 dead. * Parliamentary Election in The Netherlands May 1 * U.S. President George W. Bush is not in Washington, DC on the Fourth Anniversary of his absurd "Mission Accomplished" performance. U.S. Congress delivers legislation that funds the war but includes a timetable for withdrawal of U.S. troops. Bush has promised to veto the $124 billion worth of funding, $100 billion to continue losing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan this year and domestic projects whose public policy purposes Bush disdains: health care for poor children, farm aid to rebuild southern states hit by 2005 hurricanes and increasing the minimum wage. * LAPD use batons and fired 240 "less-than-lethal" rounds at demonstrators and reporters to break-up immigrant rights protest without makign a single arrest. * Turkish Constitutional Court annulls first round of parliamentary vote for a new Islamist president. May 2 * Heroic Space Age astronaut Wally Schirra dies at age 84. * U.S. and Middle Eastern diplomats meet at Sharm el-Sheikh to discuss the consequences of the failed Republican War in Iraq. * French presidential candidates Nicolas Sarkozy and Segolene Royale conduct 2.5 hour televised debate. May 3 * Conservative news media designated Republican presidential nomination "front-runners" Rudi Giuliani, John McCain and Mitt Romney plus designated "lesser knowns" debate Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California. Romney is deemed a front-runner not because of suppport among likely Republican primary voters but because his campaign has been showered by contributions, which it spent a fortune to attract. * Elections conducted for the Scottish Parliament, Welsh National Assembly, and local councils in Scotland and England. The Scottish National Party (SNP) emerges as the largest single party in the Scottish Parliament, winning 47 seats compared with the Scottish Labour Party's 46 seats. The Conservative Party won 17 seats and the Liberal Democratic Party won 16. Other parties won three seats. May 5-12 * Polish European Meetings May 6 * Second Round of the 2007 French Presidential Election: Gaullist Nicolas Sarkozy defeats Socialist Segolene Royal 53.2% to 46.8% with a massive voter turnout of 85%. Sarkozy announces that "France is back in Europe today." * Car bombing kills 33 in Bayaa, a Shi'a market in Baghdad. * Iraqi police station in Samarra is attacked by a suicide bomber who ploughs van packed with explosives into the gate during a firefight between police and insurgents; 12 Iraqi police were killed and 11 wounded in the attack before U.S. military units arrive to save the "our" Iraqis from the other Iraqis. May 9 * U.S. V.P Richard B. "Dick" Cheney meets with U.S. and Iraq leaders in the Baghdad Green Zone and spent one night at Camp Speicher, 7 miles from Tikrit, where he was defended by the 25 Infantry Division. Contrary to all the conservative whining about negative (conservative code for truthful) news coverage about the Republican War in Iraq Cheney asserts that it has no effect on U.S. troop morale or perfomace: "Our soldiers are smart, they read and we have good television connections here – AFN, CNN, Fox. They watch it, they listen to it. It doesn’t affect their morale or their performance." News Report. * Pope Benedict XVI endorses excommunication for elected officials who voted for Mexico City's decision to legalize abortion in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy: "It's nothing new, it's normal," he said. (Normal? Well perhaps in the same way that celibacy is normal.) May 10 * British PM Tony Blair announces that he will step down on June 27. May 12 * Schuman Parade May 13 * 1st Lt. Andrew J. Bacevich, son of Boston University professor Andrew J. Bacevich, dies of wounds suffered after a bomb explosion in Iraq. May 15 * Rightist religious extremist Jerry Falwell dies of a heart attack. The oibese televangelist was responsible for gulling millions of working class white fundamentalist Protestants into voting against their own class interests. * Islamist suicide bomber kills 25 in Peshawar, Pakistan. May 15 * 2008 Republican presidential candidates conduct second debate, this time in South Carolina. Ron Paul is attacked by Rudy Giuliani for telling the tabooed truth about U.S. militarism in the Middle East. Giuliani and Romney appear to endorse torture. May 16 * Hamas and Fatah militias battle in Gaza. * French President Nicholas Sarkozy names Socialist Bernard Kouchner, co-founder of Medicins Sans Frontiers as Foreign Minister. May 17 * French President Nicholas Sarkozy names Francois Fillon as Prime Minister. * Republican presidential candidate and U.S. Senator from Arizona John McCain gets into an absurd conservative shouting match with U.S. Senator John Cornyn of Texas over immigration legislation. * Israel and Hamas continue to trade airstrikes and rocket attacks along the Israel-Gaza border. May 18 * Israel and Hamas continue to trade airstrikes and rocket attacks along the Israel-Gaza border. May 19 * Effective today, Judge Reggie B. Walton is appointed to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court by the Chief Justice of the United States. * Speaking in Little Rock, Arkansas, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter says aloud what most Americans and the rest of the planet already knows: "I think as far as the adverse impact on the nation around the world, this administration has been the worst in history." * Israel and Hamas continue to trade airstrikes and rocket attacks along the Israel-Gaza border. May 20 * Israel and Hamas continue to trade airstrikes and rocket attacks along the Israel-Gaza border. May 21 * New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson declared himself a candidate for the presidency. * Israel and Hamas continue to trade airstrikes and rocket attacks along the Israel-Gaza border. * After creating chaos in American politics in 2000, Florida may do it again in 2008. Florida Governor Charlie Crist signed legislation moving Florida's presidential primary to January 29. * Democratic U.S. representatives Nick J. Rahall and Rep. George Miller send Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne a letter calling for a full accounting of Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks Julie MacDonald’s role in the removal of the Sacramento Splittail from the endangered species list. May 22 * Israel and Hamas continue to trade airstrikes and rocket attacks along the Israel-Gaza border. * Bombing of a crowded shopping mall in Ankara kills 5 and wounds 60. * The New Democratic Party (NDP) wins a legislative majority in the Manitoba Provincial Assembly for a third time. The NDP won 36 of 57 seats. The Tories lost 2 seats to take 16 seats and the Grits win 2 seats. May 23 * U.S. Pres. George W. Bush strikes a frustrated, almost peevish tone: "The Iraqi government has a lot of work to do. They must meet its responsibility to the Iraqi people and achieve benchmarks it has set, including adoption of a national oil law, preparations for provincial elections, progress on a new de-Baathification policy." May 27 * Price of oil hits 65.20 a barrel. May 28 * Japanese LDP (conservative) Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries Toshikatsu Matsuoka apparently commits suicide. Implicated in bribe-taking for awarding public works contracts, the 62-year-old is found in his pyjamas hanged with a dog leash attached to his living room door. May 29 * Whose gunmen are scarrier? Five security personnel of the Montreal-based security firm GardaWorld, fiour Britons and a "client" are taken prisoner (or "kidnapped" in the Newsspeak used by Western news media) in the Iraqi Finance Ministry in broad daylight and driven away in vehicles of the Iraqi police. News reports suggest the gunmen taking custody as opposed to being in custody are from the Mahdi Army. May 30 * U.S. Pres. George W. Bush appoints representative of finance capital (Goldman Sachs executive) Robert Zoellick to replace the neo-conservative Paul Wolofowitz as President of the World Bank. * CH-47 Chinook shot down in Afghanistan: 5 Americans, 1 Brtion and 1 Canadian dies in the crash. Colaition forces have to call in an airstrike to search the crash site. May 31 * Date on which British tabloid The Sun predicts British PM Tony Blair will step down as Prime Minister. (Actually it turns out that he will step down on June 27). * Presidential announcement foreplay from Fred Thompson's campaign managers. They reveal that he has quit his day job on "Law and Order." June June 10 * Three American troops die in separate incidents, bringing the U.S. death toll since March 2003 to 3,506. June 11 * U.S. Army releases statistics showing that in May the Army signed up only 5,101 new recruits, short of its goal of 5,500. * Suicide truck bomb destroys section of highway bridge south of Baghdad. Another suicide truck bomber blew up an Iraqi police office in Tikrit, killing 15 and wounding 50. June 13 * U.S. House and Senate Judiciary Committees subpoena former White House counsel Harriet Miers and former political director Sara Taylor to testify about their roles in the dismissals of U.S. Attorneys fired in 2006 for improper political motivations, such as encouraging investigations of Democratic Congressional candidates or stall those of Republicans Congressional candidates. June 14 * Jack Idema is freed from an Afghani prison after serving 3 years of a 10 year sentence for running a private sector mercenary prison/torture house. * Describing the Earth's environment as automatically self-healing rightwing radio voice Rush Limbaugh claims that humans cannot harm the global climate. June 20 * New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg annoucnes that he is leaving the Republican Party, a decision interpreted as preparation for a possible bid for the U.S. Presidency as an independent. * U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) describes the Republican War in Iraq as a "tragedy" and a "grotesque mistake." * June 14: Public release of letter to PM Stephen Harper from 100 law profesors and human rights organizations urging that Canada insist on the repatriation of Omar Khadr. Alex Neve, Sec-Gen. of Amnesty International Canada comments that, "It is time, long past time in fact, for the Canadian government to intervene publicly and forcefully and unequivocally demand that Omar Khadr's stay at Guantanamo Bay must now come to an end. Canada can no longer remain silent." Source: Andrew Mayeda. "Government Says Move to Repatriate Khadr 'Premature'." Canwest news Service. June 15, 2006. News Report June 25 * U.S. Lieutenant-Commander William Kuebler, U.S. military lawyer for Guantanamo prisoner Omar Khadr comments that, "There is no reason why Omar cannot be brought home to face Canadian justice." He notes that, "They (Canadian officials) have given the United States the benefit of the doubt long enough...the Canadian government has been noteworthy for its silence. It shouldn't be political...Why is it less important to give due process to a Canadian than to an American?" Source: Colin Freeze. "Lobby To Bring Khadr Home, Canada Urged." Globe and Mail. June 26, 2007. News Report June 29 * U.S. Supreme Court agrees to hear an appeal on behalf of Omar Khadr and other terror detainees challenging their detention at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base. Source3: n.a. "U.S. Supreme Court Reverses Stance On Khadr Appeal." Times Colonist. June 30, 2007. News Report July 4 * Six Canadian soldiers and Afghan interpreter killed in an ambush in the Zhari district of Kandahar. * Liberal Party Leader Stephane Dion calls for an end to the Canadian mission in Afghanistan by 2009: "The prime minister has said that he needs to have a consensus in order to extend the mission beyond February of 2009. This consensus will never exist. You know what is the views of the other parties and what is the view of the official Opposition. So the prime minister should say that right away. It should have been done weeks ago." NDP Leader Jack Layton urges Prime Minister Stephen Harper to initiate peace negotiations: "A comprehensive peace process must include all combatants, all elements, all countries involved in the region with international leadership. Canada is an expert in this area. We used to be known globally for our expertise in this area. I believe it's time for Canada to get back on that path and begin to carve out with those many nations who are concerned about what is happening in Afghanistan, and Afghan leadership, to adopt a new strategy." Source: n.a. "Dion Wants Afghanistan Mission To End In 2009." CTY.ca News. July 4, 2007 News Report July 5 * Canadian PM Stephen Harper repeats determination to keep Canadian troops in Afghanistan until 2009. He also describes the $3.1 billion refit of 12 Halifax-class frigates as "giant floating command posts" as making the backbone of the Canadain Navt stronger. * Canadian Liberal MP Stephen Owen announced he would be resigning from politics on CTY Newsnet July 9 * Toronto Star reports an internal Conservative Party memo accusing environmental activists of partisan motives: "These environmentalists need to be exposed for their hidden agenda–support the Liberal party at all costs." Source: Jennifer Ditchburn. "Climate Activists Accused of Cozying Up to Liberals." The Toronto Star. July 9, 2007. News Report * July 10: Suicide bomber in Uruzgan, Afghanistan kills 17 people and wounds 30, including seven NATO ISAF soldiers. July 13 * Jury finds Lord Conrad Black guilty of four of the 13 charges against him, including criminal fraud and obstruction of justice, though not guilty of racketeering. July 14 * Who knew he was running? Former Virginia Governor Jim Gilmore announces that he is ending his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. July 17-18 * U.S. Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid forces all-night debate on the failing Republican War in Iraq. Reid's purpose is to remind his anti-war base that the pro-war opponents are the Republican Congressional minority, and not the the Congressional Democratic majority. July 18 * Democratic U.S. representatives Nick J. Rahall and Rep. George Miller send Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne another letter reiterating their call for an explanation of former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks Julie MacDonald’s role in the removal of the Sacramento Splittail from the endangered species list. * Slap on the wrist for murdering an Iraqi: 25-year-old Marine Cpl. Trent Thomas of Madison, Illinois receives a bad-conduct discharge and reduction in rank to private for the 52-year-old retired policeman Hashim Ibrahim Awad in the village of Hamdania. Yet another lesson taught the world in the superiority of the American military "justice." July 21 * U.S. Vice President Richard B. "Dick" Cheney takes power for several hours while U.S. President George W. Bush is unconscious during a colonoscopy. * Pratibha Patil was elected India's first woman president. * Demonstration outside National Football League (NFL) HQ demanding that the organization get rid of accused dog torturer Michael Vick. Horrendous violence against many dogs since 2001 by the NFL Quarterback and his cronies at the "Bad Newz Kennels" was detailed in an 18-page federal indictment. July 29 * U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan issues warning to Americans to exercise caution traveling in Kabul after receiving information about possible threat against Kabul University. July 30 * British PM meets U.S. Pres. George W. Bush at Camp David. According to one Simon Serfaty, Center for Strategic & International Studies quote generator, "What the president wants to find out is whether the new prime minister is a reliable ally. The word to use is reassurance. This is not about a marriage. It's a date." (Does Briwn want to know whether Bush is as dim in person as he appears on television?) July 31 * This is the date on which Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne has been invited to address the U.S. House of Representatives Natural Resources Committee. August * August 1: Not even close to being democratic: Jordan permits municipal council elections. * August 3: Using a gun to solve a problem leads to tragedy. Stray bullet fired by a police officer at a snake accidently kills 5 year Oklahoman Jack Tracy while he was fishing with his grandfather. * August 5: 19-year-old Devaughdre Broussard shoots to death Chauncey Bailey, editor of the Oakland Post newspaper, for writing negative stories about Your Black Muslim Bakery. * August 5: Pioneering Civil Rights activist-attorney Oliver W. Hill dies at age 100. * August 6: GAO Report revals that the Pentagon has lost track of 190,000 AK-47 rifles and pistols given to the Iraqi Army. * August 7: Robert Murray, Chairman of Murray Energy, owner of the Crandall Canyon mine, uses press conference about rescue efforts to free trapped miners to rant about news media, organized labor environmentalists and scientists who dispute his insistence that an earthquake caused the collapse of his mine. Murray issues diktat not to use the phrase "retreat mining." * August 8: Can I be your client as well? Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki meets again with Iranian officials, seeking friendship and help from Iran. * August 8: In her reporting on the Crandall Canyon mine disaster Fox News Reporter Kegan Kelly obeys the diktat from Robert Murray that "retreat mining" not be used. She struggles to find ways to describe the same mining method in her 11:45 report. * August 9: Polish Minister of the Interior Janusz Kaczmarek sacked by Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski because he is suspicted of leaking classified information and thus obstructing an investigation into alleged bribery at the Ministry of the Interior. * August 11: Iragi Qadasiyah provincial governor Khalil Jalil Hamza is assassintaed by roadside bomb. * August 14: An estimated 250 killed and 350 injured in suicide bombings that level mud walled Yazidi villages near Mosul, Iraq. U.S. news coverage carefully descibes the Yazidi as a "religious minority" rather than a sect that worships both God and Satan. * August 17: Former Republican Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert announces that eh will not seek re-election to the U.S. House of Representatives as ge stands on the steps of the old Kendall County Courthouse. Creates yet another open seat that Democrats may try to win. * August 18: So many contradictions to juggle would stress even the most skilled spin-meister. White House press secretary Tony Snow announces that he will resign before the end of the president's term. * August 20: Iragi Muthanna provincial governor Mohammed Ali al-Hussani is assassinated by roadside bomb. November November 4 * Parliamentary Elections in Turkey November 6 * Parliamentary Election in the Northern Mariana Islands November 12 * Dr. Sun Yat-Sen's Birthday celebrated as Cultural Renaissance Day in Taiwan. November 30 * Leeland Eisenberg takes 3 hostages in the Richester, NH campaign office of NY Sen. Hillary Clinton. The "bomb" was actually a device made of road flares. December December 2 * Parliamentary election in the Russian Federation. United Russia campaign posters in Moscow declare that "Moscow is voting for Putin." * Plebescite on constitutional reforms in Venezuela. December 3 * Bali UN Conference on Glabal Warming begins. December 5 * Robert A. Hawkins, 19, opens fire with an AK-47 in Von Maur Department Store in the Westroads Mall in Omaha, NE and kills eight before turning the gun on himself. U.S. Pres. George W. Bush comments that, "The victims and their loved ones are in the prayers of Americans," Bush said. "The federal government stands ready to help in any way we can, and the whole nation grieves for the people of Omaha." Of course that "any way we can" doesn't include support for gun control to prevent the next atrocity from happening. Major U.S. media sources carefully steer clear of discussing the tabooed gun question. December 6 * Mitt Romney delivers speech explaining why his Mormonism should not be used against him while at the same time condemning secular Americans. * U.S. CIA Director Michael V. Hayden admits that it destroyed video tapes of interogation by torture of Abu Zubeydah and other prisoners in 2005, two years after telling September 11 Commission that it no such tapes. The excuse is that the tapes posed a "serious security risk," and that if they were to become public they would have exposed C.I.A. officials "and their families to retaliation from Al Qaeda and its sympathizers." By implication the members of the September 11 Commission couldn't be trusted. * The film Golden Compass opens in the face of a Catholic League boycott of the film. December 8 * The U.S. Justice Department and the CIA's Office of the Inspector General announce that they have launched a joint inquiry into the CIA's destruction of videotaped interrogations of two Al Qaeda suspects. DCIA Hayden responds, ""I welcome this inquiry, and the CIA will cooperate fully. I welcome it as an opportunity to address questions that have arisen over the destruction back in 2005 of videotapes." December 9 * Follow-Your-Own-Compass-Day * Five die and three others wounded in two shooting rampages in Colorado at the Youth With a Mission missionary center Arvada, a Denver suburb, and at the New Life Church in Colorado Springs. Gunman Matthew Muray, a 24 year old rejected from Youth With A Mission, ends the kiling spree by shooting himself after being shot and wounded by security guard Jeanne Asam at New Life Church. * Oprah Winfrey campaigns for Barack Obama in Iowa and South Carolina using a mixture of secular and religious sounding language. The troubled young man appears to have been the victim of religious indoctrination. In an internet posting he wrote the following: "Thank you to all you christians who've made me this way...I'm just so full of hate now and I love it," the poster wrote at 4:07 a.m. "Forcing all your religious expletive down my throat all these expletive years with your dominionist christian agenda...well...the abuse ends NOW...give me one good reason why I should show ANY mercy and compassion for ANY of you idiots." News Report December 10 * Former Dermocratic Vice President Al Gore accepts Nobel Peace Prize and uses his acceptance speech to emphasize the need for urgent action on climate change: "“We still have the power to choose our fate, and the remaining question is only this: Have we the will to act vigorously and in time, or will we remain imprisoned by a dangerous illusion?” * Russian President Vladimir Putin endorses Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev as next Russian President when Putin steps down in 2008. December 11 * Islamists detonate two car bombs killing 67 people in upscale districts of Algiers. December 23 * Presidential Election in Uzbekistan December 24 * Parliamentary Election in the Pitcairn Islands Category:Year